


Why

by dodecahedrons



Series: Perpetuality [2]
Category: South Park
Genre: Sequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 00:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16315367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodecahedrons/pseuds/dodecahedrons
Summary: Repetition is an excellent tool to make a point, but once the point has been made it becomes annoying.It's funny how painful an annoyance can truly be.





	1. Chapter 1

Plastic sporks and cardboard cups clashed against plastic trays and composite tables as the teens of South Park High scrambled to finish their lunches before the bell rang. The attendees of the school were split into the same cliques they’d kept for years, talking about whatever relevant interests they all shared at the time. Laughter and shouting filled the air that was already dense with sounds coming from every direction, sounding like the stock audio you’d hear while watching something taking place in a crowded restaurant.

At a table in a far corner of the cafeteria sat four teenagers, eating in an uncomfortable silence that sat stark against the bustling energy of the rest of the room. Eric, Kyle, Stan, and Butters all stared at their food, picking at the bits that looked edible and shoving the rest onto the table for the janitor to deal with once they were gone. No one dared speak, not after what had transpired just a few days prior.

God, had it been  _ days _ ? 

No one else seemed to care. Hell, half of the people sitting in that very room probably had no more than a very fringe idea what had happened. Maybe some of them did, but they didn’t know enough to care. Or maybe they cared, but tried to ignore it. Empathy is a bitch, after all. 

But the four had witnessed it, so it was hard to ignore.

Kenny McCormick was in the hospital, holding onto life with only the help of the equipment in the intensive care unit.

There had been an announcement about it over the intercom the morning after the accident. Mr. Mackey spoke calmly and clearly about how Kenny had fallen onto train tracks. The way he spoke about it was cursory, avoiding the gory details of what had transpired. He mostly went into detail about his blood alcohol content, which was a morbid segue into a reminder that underage drinking is illegal and dangerous. There was no mention of the memorial service that the Broflovskis were paying for. There was no apologies for the loss. His death was nothing more than an advertisement for a shitty knock-off DARE campaign that the school faculty thought would be an appropriate PR response to a student falling into a coma they’d never wake up from.

Of course, no one in Stan’s pre-calc class reacted to this announcement. Nor did anyone in Butters’ art history class. The simple fact that they had to face was that no one gave a flying fuck about the wellbeing of Kenny.

The four boys ate in silence, knowing this full well, knowing that nothing they did could change this simple fact.

With Kenny’s death came a sinking sense of familiarity, like they’d seen this sort of thing before. It was easily brushed off as a side effect of the society they lived in, though, because of how rampant violence and death was becoming. Murders happened daily, possibly hourly. Their friend being crushed under a train was only another systematic loss in the grand scheme of things, just one that hit much closer than the stories on the news.

The feeling was there, but easily ignored. And that’s exactly what they did. They ignored the feeling of familiarity, ignored the knowledge that this  _ had  _ happened before, because it didn’t happen to Kenny. It couldn’t have. Kenny lived for eighteen years, and fell victim to an alcoholic accident resulting in his untimely death. A systematic death soon to be lost amid a sea of similar deaths.

That  _ had  _ to be the explanation.

 

* * *

 

Birds chirped outside a shattered window, trying and failing to alert the inhabitants of a shoddy house that the sun was rising. If the birds had any sort of intelligence that could parallel a human’s, they’d notice there were holes in the walls that could easily be picked at and entered. Unfortunately, however, nature decided that birds should be dollar-store quality alarm clocks - loud but ultimately ineffective in awaking someone in a deep slumber.

No, what woke up the boy behind the broken window was a sharp pain running through his abdomen.

“Fuck!” he shouted, his expletive cutting through the heavy silence like a hot knife through butter. The birds outside the window scattered and flew off, leaving behind bits of grass they’d gather to begin building a nest nearby. A tree rustled as a squirrel ran up the trunk, getting away from whatever the birds were fleeing from.

Funny how instinct saves everyone from danger, even if the threat wasn’t there.

The boy threw his legs over the edge of the bed. Rather than stand and begin to get ready for the day ahead of him, though, he instead let the pain in his stomach get the better of him. Thin arms folded together and pressed into his midsection as he hunched over and groaned in pain. 

Residual response to a past injury. Something that he experienced frequently, but still hadn’t gotten used to.

He groaned, rolling his head back and squinting up at a broken analog clock on his wall. The hands - if they were still remotely accurate - told him it was half past eleven. He was late for school. Not like school mattered, though. At this point, he was two months away from graduating, and he only had the knowledge your average eighth grader would harbor. He was a highschool dropout that still attended class. A failure who still takes tests. A trainwreck of a person still going on the track, somehow.

Slowly, he managed to pull himself to his feet. His intestines screamed with every movement he made, nearly causing him to collapse onto his floor and curl up in the pile of dirty laundry and old magazines that he’d never bothered to clean up. He managed to avoid the very tempting idea that was curling up in his own filth, however, and make his way to his bedroom door.

The knob was broken, and only there to serve for aesthetic purposes. Sure, the lock had broken six months ago, but as of late his door just decided it didn’t want to click shut anymore. Because of this, the lightest tug he could muster pulled his door open, allowing its unoiled hinges to scream in agony as it slowly revealed a hallway in a similar state of disorganization compared to his own bedroom.

Socked feet traversed the matted carpet stained with decades worth of various substances, slowly traversing the small hallway that lead to the living room. As he walked, he caught a glimpse of himself in a broken mirror.

He looked pathetic. A white tanktop hung off of his thin frame, revealing the plethora scars that littered his body. Some of his most shameful scars stood out for the world to see, harshly outlined by the bright, direct rays of sunrise. Blue and green eyes flicked over his disheveled form, looking at his matted, blond hair and ragged clothing. 

He looked fucking homeless, and he practically was.

Tearing his gaze from his own skeletal appearance, he continued on his journey to the living room. The one difference he noticed lately was he had less and less of a need to avoid needles on the floor. Drug paraphernalia was becoming scarce in his house, and it was a change he was ready to welcome with open arms. After eighteen years of nightmare after nightmare, at least he was finally free of the residual smell of meth being cooked mixing with marijuana and Yankee candles.

Of course, the absence of these things came with the absence of their cause.

It had been a few reincarnations with no sign of Stuart or Carol McCormick. It’s almost as if the world decided they were no longer a relevant point of interest. Their characters were dull and overplayed, and keeping them in the picture only hindered the story from continuing. The world didn’t need to keep throwing drug addicts at the blond when it was an obstacle he’d become numb to.

The absence of his parents meant the absence of his life as he’d once known it, though.

Since his reincarnation back into a timeline he’d been in prior, it seemed as if everything had fucked itself up royally. The first few times after then were normal. He remembered giving a presentation with Karen, he remembered celebrating Ike’s 12th birthday party with Kyle, he remembered…

_ Fuck. _

There it went again.

What  _ did  _ he remember?

His brain felt like static. He needed to stop thinking about his life. About his past lives. About the lives he no longer had in his life.

He needed to forget more than he was already forgetting.

He quickly hobbled to the kitchen that sat adjacent to the living room, prying an arm away from his abdomen to open the door to a mini fridge that hadn’t been powered in months. The morning light glinting through broken, overgrown windows illuminated the selection of stolen alcohol and half-empty water bottles that sat behind the door. He didn’t take the time to look at labels, no. Rather, he quickly snatched a bottle of nondescript, cheap beer and made his way back to the living room. 

Before he even made it to the sofa, he had opened the bottle with his teeth and began to chug it like he hadn’t drank anything in months. Tears formed as the lukewarm alcohol entered his system, causing his stomach to send shocks of agonizing pain through his whole body. Still, though, he continued to drink, feeling the tears spill over and become unstoppable quickly. The bottle slipped from his thin fingers, shattering at his feet as he proceeded to collapse in pure agony.

For all intents and purposes, Kenny McCormick was dying. He just would never have the relief of a final breath.


	2. Chapter 2

A modern piece of art is stereotypically viewed as haphazard brush strokes or the act of throwing paint on a canvas while blindfolded. Sometimes it’s seen as a pile of trash bronzed and decorated with dollar store gems. The most high-brow modern art is shapes sculpted into marble or a material of similar sturdiness, resembling how it’d look to pour milk during an intense earthquake. Of course, these artistic expressions don’t follow suit when these same concepts are translated to a human’s body.

Death after death, he retained his scars. The most minor scars were overshadowed by deep scars that seemed like canyons. Thick, dark marks ran down various portions of his body. A cluster of various wounds covered his chest, and wavy blond hair covered the various scars achieved via shooting himself in the temple. Various suicides showed their victory through his wrists, cut deep with scars he could never seem to get rid of. He looked like he’d been run through a woodchipper every day for the past eighteen years, and honestly anyone who thought that was probably at least a little correct.

Immortality. That’s what he had. An incurable, terminal disease. But the bitch of it all is that the terminality of it isn’t punctuated by death, it’s punctuated by life. Unrelenting life. Painful life. The wish of death is all one suffering from immortality could hope for, but this fate is nigh impossible. Only immortals can kill immortals, and last he checked, he was the only immortal being alive.

If this is how he felt after eighteen miserable years, he dreaded to think of what the rest of his neverending life would be.

Growing up, his parents - high as they might have been - tried to instill the fear of God into him. Tried to tell him that if he lived life according to the rules in the Bible, he’d one day see an eternal life in Heaven. But as far as he could tell, this was all a bullshit lie. He’d been to Heaven a few times - never for long, though. In his visits, he could only really ever find angels. Angels, and the occasional Mormon. Christians and other religions rarely made it to Heaven. Hell, Jesus wasn’t even in Heaven.

No, most people went to Hell, himself included.

Now that his parents seemed to be gone from his timelines permanently, though, a part of him hoped to see at least one of them in heaven. They were awful people, but deep down he was convinced they were just victims of addiction. Victims of flawed genetics and their own shitty upbringings. Victims of a flawed system that demonized them instead of helping them at their lowest point.

Uneven fingertips habitually ran across a worn chain, occasionally messing with the single charm attached to it - a K, plated in faux rose gold. The coating was worn off from constant fidgeting, revealing the cheap metal beneath the surface. It was the only memory he had of her. The only memory most people had of her. 

Karen was gone.

Tears stung at his eyes as he mused over this fact. Karen was gone. His little sister - the light of his life and the only reason he didn’t dread waking up in a new timeline - was gone. Along with his parents, he hadn’t seen her in months. It’s as if the endless multiverse of realities for him to live through decided that death wasn’t hard enough. He was an adult now. He had to learn how to cope with pain that was outside his control.

A sharp knock at the rotting wood door of his house snapped him out of his thoughts.

“Hey jackass, I’m here with your scraps.”

He quickly rose from his position on the couch, gripping his head as he gained his senses. The empty bottle that rolled off his lap and across the floor as he stood reminded him that he’d just drank away whatever pain had been ailing him that morning. A dull ache resurfaced as he walked, but he did what he could to ignore it. After all, showing weakness around an enemy is never smart.

His familiar orange parka was next to the door, ready to be equipped whenever someone came by for a visit. Though this occurrence wasn’t common, it was still comforting to know he could hide himself at a short notice. 

The blond skittered across the living room, quickly pulling the jacket on as he opened the door. He didn’t bother zipping it, resigning to the fact that his face was one thing he couldn’t hide forever. Of course, at the door stood Eric Cartman, bearing a few bags of what he assumed to be dollar store food.

“Thanks, you shouldn’t have,” he murmured, squinting at the pain the sunlight brought to his vaguely hungover head. He stood to the side, giving Eric the room he needed to cross the threshold. The floor groaned beneath his weight, settling every few steps as the man made his way to the sofa. 

“Don’t complain. Your poor ass would be dead without Dollar Tree, McCormick,” Eric quipped, dropping the bags at his feet with dull thuds and throwing his whole body weight onto the old sofa. “Besides, I got your favorite.”

“What favorite? There’s nothing likable about any of the food there,” Kenny deadpanned, watching from the still-open door as Eric reached into one of the bags of food and pulled out a chocolate bar that clearly wasn’t from the Dollar Tree. 

“Spaghetti-Os.”

“As if I haven’t eaten that for dinner every night for eighteen years.”

“Grow a pair, Kenny. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“You’re one to talk, Cartman,” Kenny responded a bit too quickly. “It’s not like you’re better off.”

The room was silent for a moment, save for the crinkling of Eric’s chocolate wrapper. Unease hung in the air, filling the passing moments with an awkward discomfort. Eric took a bite of his chocolate, swallowing hard before speaking up. 

“At least you didn’t know your folks.”

Kenny felt his heart thud in his chest, feeling his eyes begin to sting again at the mention of family. It’s as if Eric knew he was mourning. But, of course, the blond knew he realistically had no way of knowing. He almost forgot that, for all intents and purposes, he’d gone with the story that his family was run out of town by their dealer. This story paled in comparison to Eric’s, though.

In this timeline, Eric’s mom killed herself. 

The details behind it were fuzzy. Eric may be a loud, obnoxious, insensitive prick, but even he couldn’t make a joke about finding his own mother’s body. The stench of rotting flesh, the sight of blood splattered everywhere, and the gun lazily dropped beside her body were the three things it took for Eric to completely shut down.

Or so Kenny was told. He didn’t remember that. He had only just reincarnated mere days prior.

“This place is fucking boring, dude. I don’t know how you live in this shithole,” Eric commented as he chewed another bite of chocolate. Diversion was a coping mechanism Kenny knew all too well, but he didn’t dare call Eric out on it.

“Well what do you suggest I do? Buy a big screen TV with all the stacks of money lying around?” Kenny drawled, finally shutting the door and leaning against the frame. “I’m thinking wall to wall. Surround-sound. The whole shebang.”

“Like these walls could support a TV,” Eric sneered. “You’d be better off buying a cheap-o TV and a game console. At least it’d give me a legal way to kick your ass.”

“Since when do you care about legalities?” 

“Since fuck you, that’s when.”

This is how it always was between them, it seemed. In this incarnation, Kenny and Cartman hated each others guts, but for some reason still hung out together. Awkward silences were the meat of their time together, punctuated by insults and insensitivity.

Kenny hated it.

He hated all of it.

He hated that he had so many lives. None of them were  _ his _ .

At this point, he wasn’t even Kenny McCormick. He was just whoever the world decided he was supposed to be that day. 

And he was tired of it. So, so tired of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so like, for those of you who've read When (which.... if u havent, what are u doing here. go back and read that. this is the sequel) I'm deciding to go more in detail about his injuries and shit. a lot of this is going to have relevance with the actual bulk of the story, this is just a lot of setup i didnt go over in the last fic. 
> 
> anyway yea i hope yall are enjoying this so far fggdhjklmdf


End file.
